Next govt won’t be able to modify budget: PM

Free and fair elections ensures prosperity, says Abbasi

LAHORE: The next government, if not manned by the PML-N, will not be able to change a single word of the budget document, Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbassi told participants of the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s (LCCI) award ceremony.

Responding to criticism on his government for bringing out budget weeks before the end of its tenure, he said that if need be, the next government could formulate its own budget.

The incumbent government, he said, could not have allowed the passage for just one-third of the fiscal year without annual budget.

Previous governments, he said, had brought supplementary budgets. But if the government was not formed by the PML-N, it would not be able to change a single word of the budget.



He said that this was the first time any government had formulated a reform-minded budget.

Prime Minister Abbasi said Pakistani businessmen lagged in benefitting from the free trade agreement with China, adding that Chinese firms were profiting.

According to him, the agreement provided Pakistan access to a market of 104 billion people, while providing China access to just 200 million people.

Urging local businessmen to capitalise on the free trade agreement, he said that they needed to increase industrial efficiency and competitiveness to benefit from it.

He said that the government could offer greater incentives and facilities but exporter needed to explore new opportunities.

Local businessmen, he said, would also need to capitalise from economic zones set up under CPEC.



Highlighting budget features, he said that taxes had been brought down from 30 per cent to 15, 10 and 5 per cent, helping increase the tax base.

According to him, bringing down payable taxes to 50 per cent was unprecedented in the developing countries.

Terming this move the greatest achievement of the incumbent government, he said that paying taxes was not an option, but a national responsibility.

Stressing the need for increasing growth and exports, Abbasi said that exports were essential for national prosperity and job creation.

As always, he said, the government would continue to address exporters’ issues, encouraging them to increase exports.

He asserted that the export incentives announced by the government were now yielding results paying dividends after the period was extended from three months to three years.



The government, he said, had been able to keep fiscal policies insulated from political changes in the country.

Highlighting benefits of democratic dispensation, he said that free and fair elections ensured prosperity.

People’s mandate, he said, should be respected.

He said that Nawaz Sharif had achieved what Pakistan could not achieve in the past 65 years.

Later, the prime minister also spoke at the annual function of the Endowment Fund Trust at the Government College University in Lahore.